Warm Carrot and Pomegranate Salad with Goat Cheese

It’s rare to find a vegetable dish so good that you get excited to swap rice and bread carbs for an extra serving of veggies. A little sweet, a little tangy, a little smoky—one taste of this warm carrot salad with pomegranate and goat cheese will send you back to the macro calculator to retool for a second plate.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Wash, trim and dry the carrots as needed, but there's no need to peel them.
2. Arrange the carrots in a single layer on a baking sheet. Generously spray them with olive oil spray and sprinkle on the Cajun spice (add a pinch of salt as well if the Cajun spice mix you use doesn’t already contain salt). Roll them around until they’re evenly coated and then roast them in the oven for 40 minutes or until tender, turning once halfway through.
3. Meanwhile, gently crush the pomegranate seeds in a small bowl, just enough to release some of the juice (watch out for flying pomegranate juice!). Add the red wine vinegar, soy sauce, olive oil and maple syrup to the juicy seeds. Stir and let the mixture sit while the carrots cook.
4. When the carrots are finished roasting, immediately transfer them to a large bowl and toss them with the spinach and a few spoonfuls of the pomegranate seed liquid. The hot carrots should slightly wilt the spinach. Taste and season with salt and pepper, if necessary.
5. Finish the salad with the crumbled goat cheese and the remainder of the pomegranate seed dressing.

You might want to go ahead and just double the recipe from the start, because this dish is just as good on day two.

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